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Monday, April 29, 2013

Please welcome Lawrence Fisher, who turned his dating escapades into prose to remind us "to have fun and enjoy life." Although frank, his book KILL ME NOW! is filled with humor that "is pointed and slaps the reader in the face with its realism.” When Fisher is not writing about his
dates, he works in computers and education. He also holds a personal fitness trainer certification, and currently lives in Tel Aviv.

Lawrence
Fisher: It
kind of like wrote itself. I went on a date and my friends asked me how it went
and when I told them they packed out laughing. I started a blog about amusing
or horrifying dates and one reader said that I should start a book and so I
did.

Q: Is KILL ME NOW! a “how to” book to help guide men how to pick up women?

Lawrence
Fisher: Heavens
no! I had no idea what I was doing, so my only guide to readers is to not do
what I did. It is simply to show people that the idea is to have fun and enjoy
life. One woman told me to my face that I was too fat. At one stage in my life,
I would have been deeply hurt by that statement but nowadays, I brush it off
and move on. As I say in my book, NEXT!

Q: Although this is a book about men
“in pursuit” of a soulmate, I discovered that I, a woman, laughed and
appreciated the situation as I was reading an excerpt. Did you write your book
for men or were you thinking about women readers, also?

Lawrence Fisher: I geared this book towards guys like
me who enter the dating world and have no idea what they are doing. They are
not going to find anyone sitting on a couch, although in the world of online
dating, you do not know. But I found that like you, many female readers get a
kick out of seeing the male mindset and of course, I use humor to tell my
story.

Q: “Not my usual fare, but I do love
humor...and the author hooked me with the book description and title.” How
important is humor in telling your story?

Lawrence Fisher: If there is no humor, no story!
Simple as that! If I cannot find the humor in an incident, then there is
something wrong with me and the incident is not worth talking about. You
remember I mentioned the woman who called me fat? I was thinking of adding that
as a story and changing Winston Churchill’s famous quote to: “Yes I am fat, but
I can diet and be thinner, but you will always be unpleasant.” There is a
debate as to whether it was Churchill who made the comment “And you, Bessie,
are ugly. But I shall be sober in the morning, and you will still be ugly.”

Lawrence Fisher: It was a nice spring evening when I
met, Ms Motor Mouth. Young Lawrence (ok, young at heart...) shaved, showered
and perfumed himself up to meet Ms Motor Mouth, who was a blind date, bestowed
upon him by a match maker. Yes, yes, you heard it, a match maker. Read my book
for sordid details of the awfulness of this period.

So I
met Motor for coffee and for the better part of two hours, she did not stop
talking. The poor waiter was standing next to her waiting for her to order
while she went on and on. The only thing I knew about her soliloquy was that
she was complaining about her job. Not explaining, but complaining. Should I
have charged her $200 for therapy?

My
mind wondered and wandered and I looked up to the heavens for release. Scotty
was not available, but the title was born. Thanks Ms Motor Mouth.

Q: “Mr. Fisher's style is personal and he
opens his soul for all to see” How do you get readers to care about you, the
“protagonist,” in your book? How do you create you as the main “character?”

Lawrence Fisher: I think people care because I am a regular guy,
not one of the Hollywood types but a regular Joe, like them. Just someone
looking for a mate.

Q: What made you
want to be a writer?

Lawrence
Fisher: A
reader made me become a writer. I never thought I would but I am not sorry I
did!

Q: What’s next?
How do you envision your writing career?

Lawrence Fisher: KILL ME NOW!
will be a trilogy. I am working on the second and third books together. The
second will be “How I didn’t meet your mother” and the third will be “Why
didn’t I listen to my friends?”

Q: Tell us something about you. Since you no
longer have to search for your soulmate (and I trust married life is agreeing
with you), what do you like to do when you’re not writing?

Lawrence Fisher: Supposed to be a secret that I am married, until
the second book is published. Well, I happen to love my wife and she likes my
book. So apart from being with her, I love reading and of course I have my day
job.

About Lawrence Fisher

Lawrence has
been out on countless dates in search of his soulmate. Like most people he has
found himself in many strange situations. However, he found that he could see
the humor in each situation. Lawrence is a single guy in his late 40s. He has
worked in computers and education for about 25 years and also holds a personal
fitness trainer certification. He currently lives in Tel Aviv, Israel. Lawrence
Fisher spends his days writing software tutorials and his nights in the endless
search for the ONE. Will he find her? Or will there be book two out?

KILL ME NOW! is about Lawrence, a man in his late 40s dodging bullets deep in the dating battlefield while searching for the ONE. In KILL ME NOW! Lawrence tries to decode signals of his enigmatic opponent, often resulting in his hasty retreat. Why is she resting her head on her hand? Is she bored? Or is she interested? He finds himself in many humorous situations where he has no idea what he is doing and no idea how to maneuver through the skirmish. Trapped in the epicenter of the courting conflict, the motivating thought that sustains him is his strong belief that somewhere out there, she awaits. Join Lawrence as he painfully stumbles through the mating minefield in search for his SOULMATE while silently wishing that he was elsewhere. Be warned, you will laugh!

No
date again, woe is me! How many of us have sat at home wondering why we don’t
have a date? How many of us have gone to a bar to look for a girl, found
someone interesting and just froze? What should we say to her? What is a good
pick up line? Questions, questions, questions! Help!

Those
of us who know how to use the internet instinctively say, “Google it!” In the
search tab, you type in, “how to pick
up girls” and hope for the best. You then receive a plethora of websites
offering you information from the best of the best. THE experts! Or so you
assume. One site says there are plenty of people who are good at picking up
girls, but cannot explain their art. If they cannot explain, then what good are
they to us? Do they describe which girls are they trying to pick up? What kind
of girls were these, real or imaginary?

One
night, I decided to try a line from one of those websites. Me, myself and I,
the holy trio, decided to go to a bar. A stunning brunette caught my attention
as she eyed the crowd. Somehow she managed to avoid eye contact with me. I
walked up to the lady, took out my iPhone, and hoped it impressed her.

I
read off my iPhone, “Baby, I’m no Fred Flintstone but I can make your Bedrock.”
OK, I agree with you. That is a lame line.

She
leaned toward me seductively and said, “Go Google again!” Was she being rude to
me or not? I still have no idea. I think she had learned the true art of
diplomacy, which is the ability to tell someone to go to hell so that he
actually looks forward to the trip.

It
is very important to make a good first impression. The first impression is
vital. It is difficult to correct a bad first impression. Oh, the pressure, the
pressure. There is only one chance to do it right!

Going
up to a girl at a bar saying, “What is a girl like you doing in a place like
this?” will probably earn you a smirk. Not only is the line antiquated, but it
seems to work only in the movies, and sometimes not even there. The only time I
tried that line, the girl said it was her bar and that I should not refer to it
as “such a place”.

Oh,
what should I do? What should I do?

The
internet provides contradicting information. What's new? When we search for
something in our field of expertise, we understand whether it sounds right or
not. But if our understanding is close to zero, how can we define what is right
and what is not?

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Please shine the spotlight on Alex and SJ Byrne, a mother-daughter team who together wrote the "other worldly" ONCE A DRUID -- just published. Check it out.

Living in the mountains of Western North Carolina, Alex and
SJ Byrne are just trying to make their way through the insanity that comes with
creativity. Writing is SJ’s passion—life is her must—Alex is the force that
brought this long anticipated
novel to light after 17 years in a box.

There
is something seriously wrong in Kirra Munro's head. Besides suffering from
amnesia, night after night she is plagued by dark dreams of other worldly
rituals and a past she has no right in remembering—or does she?

Psychology
professor Cayden McKinnon has the ability to unlock the blockages in her mind,
but after one visit things begin unraveling far too fast.

Time
is running out...or has the battle for one woman's soul just begun?

Excerpt

Beyond her heavy eyelids, Kirra knew
she was no longer alone. In the darkest shadows a presence had joined her.

The being didn’t breathe. Her sensitive
hearing would have detected the slight whoosh of air filtering through the
spongy mass of a living lung.

It also wasn’t human—her tongue would
have tingled from the imminent promise of a blood offering.

Whatever the thing was, she had never
encountered its kind before.

A slight shift in the air to the left
alerted her to the creature’s exact position. Part of her wanted to be afraid
but her stronger essence knew there was nothing to fear.

A prickling began in the tips of her
toes as she pushed the comforting thought into every corner of her brain.
Curious about the cause, she stilled her mind and focused on the heat spreading
from her feet throughout the rest of her body. Not an entirely unpleasant
sensation, it was much like bathing in a gentle wash of warm water.

Once the sensation penetrated her brain
she knew all her past actions were being picked apart and judged by the
invading heat. Somehow she understood that the being held her life in its
hands. Despair saturated the infrastructure of her spirit but ceased almost
immediately, leaving a sense of weightlessness at her soul’s core.

“Only the pure of heart can receive my
protection—all others perish during the purging.”

The edict slipped into her thoughts
like soft feathers turned to a thick warm liquid. Through the haze washing over
her reflective process, Kirra sensed her body being lifted off the slab of
stone and was unable to resist the movement.

To be cradled against an essence
exuding such strength and vitality made her want to cry. All she’d been lacking
in her heart flooded her system, choking the breath from her lungs.

“Weep not...”

The voice drifted off into
unintelligible murmurings as the shadows behind her eyes turned pure black and
Kirra’s thoughts were no more.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Suspense author
J.J. DiBenedetto brings us a series of novels whose protagonist, Sara Barnes,
sees other people’s dreams, including some gruesome murders. As Sara struggles
to understand and even act on these dreams, "The tension built over the length of the story and
I found myself unable to put it down," said one reviewer. In the four-book
series, we see her
grow, become a doctor, get married, and have a family - all while dealing with other people's dreams.

When the author is
not writing about dreams, he enjoys operas. As with so many of us, he and his
wife do whatever his cat says. And, he is a New York Giants fan.Don't miss the short excerpt at the end of the interview.

Q:What inspired you to create a character
who dreams other people’s dreams --and then build a series with that character?

J. J.
DiBenedetto: The
idea just “came to me” – that someone could see into dreams, and then use what
they saw there in their waking life to solve a problem.Then I asked myself, “what problem
could someone see in another person’s dream that they’d have to solve?”That’s where the idea of a killer who
committed his crimes without witnesses came from—so the dreamer would be the
only witness, and they’d feel compelled to act.

Q: Many of your
reviewers appreciate the suspense in your series -- “a lot of suspense that will keep you guessing.”
How do you create this suspense for your readers?

J. J.
DiBenedetto: Mainly by trying to keep everything else in
the book more realistic.Each of
the books has a lot of focus on everyday life, whether it’s college or medical
school or the everyday ups and downs of a marriage.I think that heightens the suspense of the dreams and the
difficult situations my characters get involved in due to them.

Q: What do you
do to help readers care about your characters?

J. J.
DiBenedetto:I just try to create
real people, with quirks and foibles, and show them in everyday situations that
the reader can relate to.Who
knows what any of us would do if we were confronted with a serial killer—but we all know what it’s like to be up
against a school or work deadline, or how to balance family and work, or
whether to keep a secret that would hurt a loved one if they knew it.

Q: What makes a
hero/heroine?

J. J.
DiBenedetto:Unselfishness, most of
all.Putting what’s right, and the
good of others, ahead of yourself.

Q: What makes a
villain?

J. J.
DiBenedetto:The quality of treating
other people as less than you, less than human.Once you start down that road, there’s eventually nothing
you won’t do, if you don’t see the people you’re doing it to as human beings.

Q: One of your
reviewers said of your first book DREAM STUDENT, “A bit of paranormal for fans of realism.” How do
you create that realism or sense of credibility in books about someone who can
see other people’s dreams?

J. J.
DiBenedetto:Basically by making the
dreams the only paranormal element—and also by not giving Sara much, if any,
control over them.It’s a lot
easier to accept the story when it’s basically the real world, with one small
exception.Also, I think it helps
that Sara still has to work out what the dreams mean during her waking hours,
and she ends up doing a lot of old-fashioned detective work.The dreams aren’t a cure-all for the
situations she finds herself in.

Q: Is setting
relevant to your story? Could Sara dream other’s dreams anywhere, at any time?

J. J.
DiBenedetto:The setting is mainly
relevant because putting it in the time and place I did made it a lot easier to
create a believable, detailed world for Sara to live in (her college in Dream
Student is more-or-less my college with the names changed, for one thing).The setting of 1989-90 for the first
book is also so I didn’t have to worry about Sara and her friends having cell
phones or using Google to solve their problems.But we do see in the later books that Sara’s dreams follow
her to medical school, residency and private practice.

Q: Do you write
from an outline, or do your characters push you around? (I might be a little
nervous that Sara might use your dreams to make you do what she wants!)

J. J.
DiBenedetto:I don’t have a formal
outline, but I do have a general idea of where the story is going.But Sara (and some of the other
characters!) have surprised me now and then as the books have gone on.

Q: How important
is delivering a message or educating readers in your stories? Or do you write
purely for entertainment?

J. J.
DiBenedetto:Entertainment is the
main purpose, but I also definitely wanted to write about a heroine who was
unselfish and courageous and compassionate, and who didn’t make
self-destructive choices.If
there’s any message, it’s that those qualities (courage, compassion, hard work)
are important and ought to be valued.I don’t think that’s a message that we see often enough in popular
culture these days.

Q: Tell us
something about yourself. What do you do when you’re not writing? Do you have a
muse? Do you have any hobbies? Music? Books?

J. J.
DiBenedetto:I’m a huge opera fan
and I try to go as often as I can.I read a lot, mostly science fiction/fantasy, and I’m a big sports fan
as well.And when I’m home I do
whatever my cat wants me to, since she runs our household!

About J.J. DiBenedetto

J.J. (James)
DiBenedetto was born in Yonkers, New York. He attended Case Western Reserve
university, where as his classmates can attest, he was a complete nerd. Very
little has changed since then.

He currently
lives in Arlington, Virginia with his beautiful wife and their cat (who has
thoroughly trained them both). When he's not writing, James works in the direct
marketing field, enjoys the opera, photography and the New York Giants, among
other interests.

What would you do if you could see other people's dreams? If you could watch their hidden fantasies and uncover their deepest, darkest secrets...without them ever knowing?

Sara Barnes is
about to find out. She thought that all she had to worry about was final exams,
Christmas shopping and deciding whether she likes the cute freshman in the next
dorm who's got a crush on her.

But when
she starts seeing dreams that aren't hers, she learns more than she ever wanted
to know about her friends, her classmates...and a strange, terrifying man whose
dreams could get Sara killed.

“I didn’t expect to be
woken up by someone I don’t know dreaming about killing somebody. I thought I was done with that once and for all..."

But Sara's not done with it. As if adjusting to life as a newlywed and starting medical school weren't difficult enough, she's started seeing the dreamas of everyone around her, again. Before everything is said and done, those dreams might destroy Sara's hopes of becoming a doctor, wreck her marriage and even end her life...

"I would give anything to take this away from her. I would gladly go back to having the nightmares myself - the very worst ones, the ones that had me waking up screaming in a pool of my own vomit - rather than see Lizzie go through this..."

As a resident at Children's Hospital, Sara can handle ninety hour workweeks, fighting to save her young patients from deadly childhood diseases. But she's about to be faced with a challenge that all her training and experience haven't prepared her for: her four-year-old daughter has inherited her ability to see other people's dreams...

"Why is this so hard for me? Why am I having so much trouble? Why do I feel so helpless, so hopeless? What the hell is wrong with me?"

After tangling with murders and mobsters, not to mention medical school and three years of residency, Sara thought she could handle anything. And then the police show up without warning at her new office and arrest her for a crime she can't possibly have committed. Sara's confidence, and her grip on reality, is shattered during one terrifying night in jail.

Now, the very dreams that have endangered her life and driven her to the edge of madness may be the only thing that can help Sara find herself again...

Excerpt

“You said he opened the trunk.Were you watching from behind him?”I try to picture it.I feel pounding, as though my brain is
beating itself against the inside of my skull.I was in the back seat, but then – I guess – yes.I was outside.

“Yeah.I see
what he’s doing.I can see the
trunk.”

“Can you see the license plate?”God!It’s
really hard to focus.It
hurts.I just want it to stop
hurting.I can see – it’s an Ohio
plate.I can read - I think I can
read it.

“LXG.L like in
large, X like in x-ray, G like in good.And then three numbers.One, four, seven.”I feel a
tear fall from my eye.I want to
stop.I can’t – can’t keep doing
this.

“Are you sure?L, X, G, one, four, seven?”Beth’s voice is so calm, so peaceful.How can it be so calm?I hate her for that.What
right does she have to be so calm?

Am I sure?I
don’t – I have to focus.Focus.Focus.“Yes.Definitely.I’m
sure.”

I can’t make any words come out; none of my muscles want to
work.I think I might have managed
a very weak smile, but I’m not even sure about that.

I feel a hand on my back, and another on my forehead, I’m
being pushed up.Someone grabs my
left hand and puts a cup into it, and some – pills?aspirin, maybe? – into my right hand.“There you go.Swallow those, have a little water,”
Beth says.I follow her orders,
and I’m lowered back down.